Joshua Feenics is a university professor caught up in the politics of academia at the same time he is struggling with his internal demons.
He has a wife who has been unfaithful, a son he adores and a demanding job as head of the department of anthropology and archaeology at Hadrian University. The nuts and bolts of his life are already loose.
Joshua’s childhood was dominated by a bully of a father and a beaten-down mother and the saga of early abuse and neglect has tormented him throughout his life. He yields to his wife’s wish that they live in a house by the lake that takes him two hours to come home to each evening. He has an accident one night and winds up in a psychiatric hospital where he receives much needed counseling after suffering a breakdown.
When he returns to his job at the university he finds himself embroiled in the customary departmental discord and the minutiae of his life deaden him. He deals with his administrative tasks by rote. At the same time he faces a new challenge that threatens his standing as departmental head. The prospect of a partnership between the university and a dealer in antiquities should excite him but makes him suspicious.
Why his department and his university instead of one at the Ivy League level, he asks. No one listens and his inertia intensifies. As he confronts his demons and struggles to regain control of his inner self, he allows the antiquities project to go on without him until it ends as he has foreseen, in a shambles.Feenics’ personal life takes the same path as his professional one.
The novel ends in a way that is not totally unexpected. Feenics emerges justified in his actions, both internal and external, and the promise of future happiness hangs over him and his son.
Michael Kasenow’s poetic writing style helps to draw the reader into this absorbing story of angst on a college campus. Although the book is billed as a thriller, the most exciting moments are saved for the end, unless one counts the page-by-page suspense of getting there.
Mr. Kasenow is a novelist, poet and scientist who teaches geology at Eastern Michigan University. His revelations about academic life are engrossing and realistic. The story of one man’s tortured existence unravels in bits and pieces until the parts come together into a cohesive picture. Solid writing makes this worth a read.
Reviewed by Eveline Speedie for IndieReader